Birthing Kyan was sudden. He
was due in the middle of January and decided to make his entrance Christmas
day. Labour began at midnight when I was exactly 37 weeks (to
the hour) pregnant. In British Columbia home births are permitted
after 37 weeks so we were right down to the wire. We had
planned a home birth and had most of our supplies but were not mentally
ready to accept that birth was indeed happening. False labour
we kept thinking, but it just kept going.
Pregnancy taught me to live one day, one hour, and even one minute at a time. Birthing was the same thing. Just breathe, move, feel the movement of the baby, open, breathe, move. One contraction at a time, no clocks. I laboured on the floor between the bottom of our bed and the small bathroom. Joni Mitchell played in the background. My best friend sang to me, my husband was always there in my periphery, and the midwife set up her kit and was a quiet strength. When she gently checked me for dilation the number 8 was what I saw in my mind. When Janice said 8 centimetres great work Jennie, the number made me feel like I could keep going. The number 8 and then my water broke.
I thought I was really loud during labour but apparently I wasn’t. The sounds coming out were primal and helped me to let the pain go. Pushing was so tiring. I just kept asking the baby to come out, move down and meet me. After Kyan’s head was out the rest of him appeared after one push. Dave sat behind me when I pushed and I felt him sob as Kyan came out. Instantly I was compelled to hold my little one, stroking his hair as the midwife attended to me. His cord was so short that he couldn’t move beyond my belly until the placenta was out. I felt relief and disbelief that it was over and I had done it for the first half hour or so. For the rest of the day I felt like shouting to the world. Do you know what I just did? I just brought new life into the world. I just birthed a babe. He is 7 pounds of wonderful; I made him inside me and pushed him out of my body.
I birthed him in a dark, quiet room.
3 loving women and his Daddy watched and helped me. I look at
him now over 2 years later and I marvel that he ever fit inside me.
I remember how he felt inside, how he liked to move certain ways and
the relationship we had before we had seen each other. His smell was
very powerful after birth it was an earthy smell, somehow it was mysterious
and innocent to me. I am proud of the birth that Kyan and I shared.
Proud of the process, of trusting it and letting it happen as he and
I chose. I don’t think I was more brave or stronger than any
other woman. For millennia we have birthed babies and all
those women were there with me reminding my brain to be silent and let
my body do what it needed to do. I was a surrender warrior and
yes that term is a contradiction but for the journey of birthing a babe
I think it fits.
